Purple Tea Leaves
by Grasspaw
Summary: Molly is absolutely certain that her life is over, because she needs to print this paper, but the computer had to go and crash on her... It's up to the "campus's resident boy genius" to save the day.


**Hey, everyone! Just a little thing that popped into my head the other day and wouldn't get out until I wrote it down. Oh, and as for the title, it's a joke between me and one of my friends (and, incidentally, the name of Molly's horse, though I never say that). Reviews are much appreciated. And this takes place seven years after the last season; Molly's eighteen and Micah's twenty. I own nothing.**

Molly stared at the computer screen, feeling the color slowly start to drain out of her face. She thought she might be going to cry, and her hands were shaking. This couldn't be happening. This _could not _be happening.

The screen was black. Black and dead, and that little green power button on the monitor wasn't glowing like it should be. And her paper was gone.

Two hours, she thought bleakly, still staring at the dead computer in shock. Two hours she had spent welding a cohesive whole out of the notes scribbled in the spiral-bound notebook in her lap. Two hours she had spent agonizing over every word, trying to decide if it was the best fit, if she should perhaps phrase that differently, if this was as good as she hoped it was...

Gone. Down the drain. Because the _stupid _computer had to go and _crash _right as she was about to hit the print button!

It wasn't fair, and she did feel the tears welling up. She might as well quit her English class now; there was no way on earth she could rewrite it in time. The library closed in half an hour and her class was tomorrow morning. And even if she could rewrite, it would lack that certain feel, that this-is-definitely-the-best-thing-Molly-Walker-has-ever-written kind of feel.

Gone. Crashed. Lost. She should just run away now before it was too late, before they just kicked her out for failing English. She could maybe go back to New York, Mohinder... But no, he'd be ashamed of her. Perhaps Grandma Suresh; she would accept her no matter what. She could just go buy a ticket, board a plane... She wouldn't need any of her things, just enough to fill her backpack. She almost laughed at the absurdity of these thoughts, but then remembered why, exactly, she was thinking them, and her face again fell into lines of misery.

All that work just _destroyed..._

"Need some help?"

She jumped as an unexpected voice interrupted her wallowing. She looked up to see a young man standing there, looking at her in concern from behind a curtain of dark curls through which his brown eyes peered anxiously- She almost slapped herself. She was thinking like a writer again.

She waved her hand helplessly at the computer, and it took her a moment to find her voice, though it wasn't quite as shaky as she would have expected. Nor was it as steady as she would have liked, but she couldn't always have her way.

"It just... I was writing and it crashed."

"Here, let me look at it. I'm pretty good with computers." Molly stood up and let him sit down in her chair. "Did you try turning it back on?" he asked patiently. "It might have auto saved."

Molly frowned, because of course she had. "Yes, but it wouldn't. I pressed the button on the monitor, the one on the computer itself-"

"So you actually know the difference between the two? I'm surprised. English majors can't usually tell." She frowned even more.

"Believe it or not, we're actually- How did you know I was an English major?"

He looked up at her, raising one eyebrow. "No one sits here writing for two hours unless they're an English major or about to flunk out if they don't do this right. And honestly, you don't seem like the type to flunk out, so it stands to reason you're majoring in English."

"Wrong. It's my minor."

"Oh?" He did look surprised at that, and she felt a momentary surge of satisfaction. So he wasn't such a genius after all. Ha.

"I'm majoring in Equine Therapy." He gave her a skeptical look.

"Therapy for horses?"

"Therapy for humans using horses. Look, are you going to get me back my paper or not?" At her own words a gnawing panic settled in her belly, because what if he actually couldn't do it? She would fail her class, that was what.

"Sure," he said amiably, seeming amused by something. He bent down underneath the table and began fiddling with something. "The computers at this library really are awful," he commented. "Never seem to do as they're told..."

Molly made a noise that might have been taken for agreement, leaning against the table and staring into space, still wondering whether it wouldn't be easier to just leave the country.

He sat up after a few moments, but he was still looking at the computer screen and not her, so she felt safe examining him more carefully. He was African-American, she thought, but probably not fully; he had to have some white in him somewhere to be that color. His eyes were dark brown, round. His nose was a little large, she thought, but overall he was quite nice-looking. He seemed to be about two years older than here, maybe more, maybe less. He was wearing a simple white t-shirt, a thin coat on over that to ward off the autumn chill, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. He had finally gotten it back on, and was clicking through different files, frowning.

After a few minutes, he sat back with a proud smile. "Got it. 'Hero' by Molly Suresh, right?"

She could have kissed him, had the little Mohinder in her head not cleared his throat uncomfortably, and the little Matt scowled. So instead she just beamed and gushed, "Thank you so so so much!"

"You're welcome," he said, grinning at her. His teeth were almost terrifyingly perfect, she thought vaguely, still too excited over the recovery of her paper to think straight.

"How did you _do _that?" she asked in amazement, looking over his shoulder to see that it really was her paper, she was not going to fail English, and she was not going to leave the country in disgrace.

He stood out of the way to let her sit down, then bowed and said, "Micah, the campus's resident boy genius, at your service."

"Boy genius, huh?" But the sarcasm was ruined by the wide smile she was still wearing.

"Absolutely." He leaned against the table as she pressed control+p, crossing his arms and examining her interestedly. "So what did you write about, anyways?"

"It was just supposed to be the most interesting experience of my life," she said, tapping her finger on the printer while she waited. "But I had quite a few to choose from."

"Such as?"

"Hiding in a closet while the FBI searched my house for the man who murdered my parents, staying in some strange hospital room while a genetecist and not a doctor tried to save my life, having a strange man break into the room and point a gun at my head, being trapped inside a nightmare for weeks, watching the man who killed my parents shoot an innocent woman in the chest... That kind of thing."

He looked like he couldn't tell if she was being serious or not. "Which one did you choose?"

"Running through a hallway with the geneticist - who, by the way, adopted me three years later, finding a man half-dead on the floor, and the way some boy made the elevator work just by touching it while his mom ripped the doorknob off with her bare hands, and then standing outside while my hero gets shot and some man blows up over New York City."

She looked at Micah, and he looked... strange. "Kirby Plaza."

"Yes," she said, looking at him oddly. "What do you know about Kirby Plaza?"

Instead of answering her, he touched the screen with one finger, and she watched in amazement as it began to flash on and off, and all he had done was touch it. Something finally clicked in her mind, and she realized where she had seen him before.

"You're the boy that made the elevator work."

He nodded, smiling slightly, but it was a pained smile and she knew Kirby Plaza didn't bring up good memories for either of them. "Did you save Monica?"

"Yeah, she's good," he said, latching onto anything other than his memories. "She's still in New Orleans, playing superhero."

"And you're not?"

He practically stroked the monitor, an oddly amused look on his face. "I use my powers for... other things."

"Like tracking down ten-year-old girls in India?"

"Well, I needed Monica. I never did properly thank you for the help, actually. So thank you."

"You're welcome."

He leaned against the table, staring into space, then blurted out, "My mom and dad died within six months of that."

"Oh... Oh," Molly stammered, brought up short by this unexpected outburst. She had liked Micah's mother, the kind, super-strong woman who had held her close that night ten years ago. It didn't seem fair that she had died, because she had seen the way she held Micah... And his dad! The man who got shot in the chest but still got up and walked away. That took strength, a sort of strength that only a few people possessed.

"I'm sorry," she said feebly.

He gave her a quick look. "My mom died saving Monica's life."

"My parents were killed by Sylar," she said softly, examining her hands. "He pinned my mom to the wall with a bunch of knives and sawed Daddy's head off."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

He glanced at the papers coming out of the printer, then handed them to her after looking over them quickly. "So that Doctor Suresh guy adopted you?"

She nodded. "Mmhm." She flipped through the papers.

He picked at one of his nails, not looking at her. "So... I heard Sylar's supposed to be one of the good guys now."

She felt herself tense. "He goes by Gabriel now. He was staying at Peter's for a while after the whole carnival thing."

"What did you think of that, anyways?"

"I thought that after everything we'd gone through to hide our existence... Claire was being an idiot to throw it all away."

"Agreed. Did you hear what happened to Peter?"

"That whole thing the Shanti virus?" she said solemnly, shuddering slightly at the mere thought of it. "Mohinder told me that they only just got the cure in time."

Micah nodded, crossing his arms and looking at her, his head cocked to the side. "What do you think would happen if a healer got it?"

"What? The virus?" He nodded, and she shrugged. "I don't know if they even could. I mean, we use their blood for a cure; how could they catch it?"

Micah shrugged. "There are stranger things in the world."

"Such as?"

"Us. Girls who find people wherever they are, boy geniuses who control technology..."

"Mm hm." Molly placed the papers in her backpack. "Look, the library closes in just a few minutes. We'd better go."

"Sure. See you around." He turned on his heel and began to walk away, and she noticed that there was a small slip of paper where he'd been standing a few seconds before. She picked it up.

"Hey, boy genius, you dropped something."

He turned, gave the paper a quick look, then, laughing, continued on his way. Confused, she looked at the paper in her hands.

There was a quickly scrawled phone number, followed by a quickly scrawled note. _Your phone seems to be lacking in my number. We'll just have to rectify the situation, won't we?_

_Micah_

__**So, did anyone catch onto my oh-so-subtle hints about what exactly those "other things" are that he uses his powers for? Comment and let me know! **


End file.
